The location of Milorad Dodik, the president of Bosnia & Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska, is currently unknown since his secret departure to Israel.

Dodik, for whom the state prosecution has issued an arrest warrant, left for Israel by plane from Banja Luka, the administrative centre of Republika Srpska, earlier in March. Bosnia’s prosecution responded by asking Interpol to issue an international arrest warrant.

Earlier this month, Bosnia’s state authorities issued central arrest warrants and travel bans for Dodik, Republika Srpska parliament speaker Nenad Stevandić and the entity’s Prime Minister Radovan Viškovic after they refused to comply with a detention order.

The three are wanted for pushing legislative changes that violate the state constitution and the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the 1992-1995 war. The proposed changes would effectively lead to Republika Srpska’s secession from Bosnia, in direct violation of the agreement.

 

Dodik travelled to first Serbia and then Israel in defiance of the travel ban. After Israel, Dodik reportedly returned to Serbia, but media reports indicate he did not return to Banja Luka.

On March 29, Dodik wrote another post on X, saying he had “arrived”, but without specifying where. He also wrote he held talks with the mayors of areas of Republika Srpska hit by floods, but again there was no information specifying whether Dodik held the talks in person, or of his current location.

Local media are speculating that Dodik might have travelled to Russia, hoping to meet President Vladimir Putin.

Bosnia’s Foreign Minister Elmedin Konakovic said in an interview with Fena news outlet that Dodik has been travelling secretly and illegally crossed the border to escape justice in Bosnia.

Konakovic said that a joint statement from the UN Security Council makes it clear that global political leaders support Bosnian territorial integrity and sovereignty.

“This [the statement] shows that the whole world understands the processes in BiH and sees that we have only one problem that is not of an ethnic or national nature, but exclusively of a corrupt and personal nature, and his name is Milorad Dodik,” Konakovic said.

“We are not talking to separatists”

Meanwhile, the EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said European institutions will no longer talk to Dodik when deciding on Bosnia’s future, N1 reported.

Kos said that Dodik was “a politician with separatist aspirations, who is against European integration” and “does not respect the order established by the Dayton Agreement and claims the rights that do not belong to him”.

“We have been waiting for a long time for the situation to stabilise enough so that Bosnia & Herzegovina can meet its obligations and implement the reforms necessary to start negotiations, after it was granted candidate status,” Kos said.

She added that the current situation in the country is tense, and that Dodik is not allowing the situation to stabilise.

“[A] politician with separatist aspirations, who is against European integration, does not respect the order established by the Dayton Agreement and claims rights that do not belong to him, of course, cannot contribute to ensuring BiH's European path,” Kos said, referring to the agreement that ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war. 

“We are trying to find a solution to bring Bosnia & Herzegovina from Dayton, which is currently still an agreement that ensures the organisation of the state, to Brussels. In short, from Dayton to Brussels, in a way that all the reforms that the candidates must implement are also implemented in Bosnia & Herzegovina,” she added.

Dodik responded by expressing his support for US Vice President JD Vance’s criticism of the EU. “I heard that Marta Kos said something. I am surprised. It [her statement] is a proof that Vice-President Vance’s position on the EU is absolutely correct,” he said. 

European political leaders met to discuss the situation in Bosnia on March 28, and condemned the attack on constitutional order by Republika Srpska’s leaders.